Jaeger Gonzo, on 10 September 2016 - 07:23 AM, said:
At a side of things that you have no blue idea about, in one thing you are really wrong. We pay, so of course there is direct return.
No, I'm not wrong.
We do not pay specifically for the Stock Mech button.
We are not directly creating profit for it, or paying them directly to do it there's no specific link.
It's something of
indirect value.
And really, one that may not be profitable - the question is, how many sales (MC, packages, gifts) will people buy because of the Stock Mech Button in private matches?
There may be 10 purchases influenced by its introduction, there may be 1, there may be none.
Direct Return is for things like Mechs and Cosmetics, as the work there is paid for directly, with an exact metric - i.e. - say the Urbie sold 10,000 standard packages, that's a direct return of $200,000 for the overheads (wages, property, consumables, electricity, hardware, etc).
Things like maps, game modes, events, features, etc, that aren't purchased and are just made available, are indirect returns, due to these things it provides the framework for the game and encourages people to play and pay.
So everything is a cost vs risk vs return analysis.
For a new map, it takes them 1-3 months to create for 2-5 people, there'll be an insurgence of players returning, who will likely purchase new packages or MC for items they hadn't seen since the last time. This should provide a reasonable indirect return.
Events that will take a day or two to prep, will bring in new players and encourage older players and leave bits of MC, or offer single mechs meaning people need more MC and more mechs to elite/master them. This should provide a reasonable indirect return.
A Stock Mech in Private button, which for even basic functionality (button, stock mechs, quirks off), will take easily, 3-14 days of manpower at $200+ a day (even though it might take 2-3 people less time, same equation) has no direct return, it's also a small sub-community of MWO (a few dozen players), who may or may not actually buy anything because of it - maybe some premium time for less-than-12-vs-12 matches, assuming they don't have it anyway from previous purchases.
This means it has a
very low potential of indirect return, and may require bug fixes in the future.
Adding additional things, such as stock values massively increases the relative workload, and needing new systams, the potential for bugs.
I've done basic coding.
I've done databasing.
I've ran and run businesses.
I've looked into how much the people at PGI make.
I've followed MWO's development and know how much of a patched together mess their coding is. (Remember, they can't do switching Ammo types, because they don't actually know how the code that runs that system works after a previous staff member left, and the work required outweighed the value of getting them back, working it out or rewriting it.)